Tony Arbolino eased to a second Moto2 win of 2023 at Le Mans as series leader Pedro Acosta crashed out while chasing him down.
Arbolino – who was also battling for the lead during the original encounter that was red flagged as a result of a nasty clash between Albert Arenas, Aron Canet and Manuel Gonzalez at Turn 4 – moved into the lead at the start of the restarted 14-lap contest as he moved ahead of now-pole man Alonso Lopez.
He quickly built up a strong lead of nearly two seconds as Lopez and Acosta battled for second, though the latter started to close in having dispatched the Speed Up racer.
The 2021 Moto3 world champion’s charge was swiftly ended though after losing the front of his Ajo-run machine on entry to Turn 5 at around a thirds distance, leaving Arbolino well clear of now second placed Filip Salac.
Sensing a possible maiden win Salac soon began to close down Arbolino, though despite getting to around half-a-second adrift he was never able to sustain a serious attack, leaving the Marc VDS racer to claim the chequered flag 0.620s clear to secure keep his record of finishing within the top four in every race this season alive.
Salac collected the second rostrum result of his Moto2 career, while Lopez banked his third podium finish of the season in third.
Celestino Vietti ended up fourth on his Fantic Racing entry ahead of GasGas’ Jake Dixon, who managed to find a way past Somkiat Chantra’s Honda Team Asia bike in the closing stages to complete the top five.
Barry Baltus was a solid seventh for the Fieten Olie Racing squad ahead of Fermin Aldeguer, who was forced to recover from an earlier long-lap penalty that dropped him back to tenth.
The recovering Ai Ogura scored his first top ten of the year in ninth, while Sergio Garcia completed the top ten on the sole remaining Pons machine as team-mate Canet was unable to make the restart, as were Gonzalez and Arenas who were also involved in the original start crash.
Sam Lowes lost out on pole position having crashed just before the red flag in the original getaway, the Brit dropping his bike at Turn 2 – though due to the red flag rules was eligible to take the restart.
Despite the hard work of his Marc VDS team putting his bike back together, he narrowly missed the pit exit window by a crushing three seconds – forcing him to start from the back of the field for the restart, in which he managed to climb back to 15th and salvage a sole point for his and the Belgian outfit’s efforts.
